


And Then Sherlock Woke Up

by seaholly



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Johnlock Fluff, M/M, Unashamed Trope, series 3 fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 09:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1422739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaholly/pseuds/seaholly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the title says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Then Sherlock Woke Up

**Author's Note:**

> And now for something completely different!
> 
> This was written on a whim after watching series 3, and has finally been edited into readability. It came about because a friend and I were talking about how they could possibly fix things after series 3, and I finally said that perhaps they should just go for the ultimate cop out and have Sherlock wake up and find out that it was all a dream. My friend said, “You should write that!” And I said, “Just for that, I think I will!” And so there was fic.

 

Sherlock Holmes awoke to a collection of unpleasant sensations.

His eyelids were too heavy, as if they’d been weighted down. Conversely, his head felt as though it was floating above his neck like a balloon on a string, tethered to his body only by the thinnest of cords. His brain was sluggish, thoughts thick and sticky like treacle, memories surfacing and sinking like bobbing corks in a pond. His mouth felt stuffed with cotton wool.

Unpleasant, all of them, but Sherlock recognised the root cause easily: drugs. And not the good kind, not the kind that sped his brain up and made everything fast and bright and brilliant. No, these were the slowing everything down kind of drugs. The official, hospital kind.

Which made sense, because while Sherlock still couldn’t get his eyes to open, all of his other senses were providing him with enough input – foggy, true, but present – to support the preliminary deduction of _hospital_. Not only was he drugged, but he was in a bed that wasn’t his own, he could hear, dimly, the faint beeping of a heart monitor, and his mouth had the aforementioned dry, hospitally cotton wool taste. And it _smelled_ like a hospital.

Sherlock tried again to force his eyelids up, and managed to get them open about halfway before they stubbornly slid shut again. The blur of white he’d got a glimpse of didn’t supply a lot of detail, but it did serve as further confirmation of the hospital deduction.

Why he was in the hospital, however, was another matter entirely.

He fought to focus his thoughts, mentally struggling for purchase on the treacly stickiness of them. A memory surfaced – sank – and then surfaced again. Shot. Yes … yes, that was it. He’d been shot.

Mary … Mary had shot him.

A dim rush of feeling accompanied that realisation, and his lips tried to form the name. Mary. Mary had shot him.

But … no. That had been before. Hadn’t it? Had it? Hadn’t it? It had been before, it had already happened, and then there had been more, after, beyond, spiralling outwards from it like great ripples in the ice cream, great ripples in the water, great wet-chocolate ripples, and there had been percussions, there had been percussions and violins …

No, that wasn’t right. Not percussions. Repercussions, that was the word. There had been repercussions. Percussions were drums. Drums and violence like the inside of his head right now …

Like the inside of his head when Mary had shot him.

She had shot him. Hadn’t she? Had she? Hadn’t she? Why had she? What did it mean? What did it mean for him? What did it mean for _John_?

As if in answer, a hand slipped into his, and Sherlock became suddenly aware that there was someone else in the room with him. He hadn’t noticed before, hadn’t even registered another presence. Careless. Stupid. Drugged-careless. Drugged-stupid.

“Sherlock?”

It was John’s voice. Sherlock felt a melting sensation of relief. John was here.

“Sherlock,” John said again, his voice tripping up in pitch. “Christ, are you awake?”

Yes, Sherlock tried to say, but all that came out was a dry-throated croak. Frog throat. His throat had become amphibious. How could it be amphibious and still be so dry?

As an alternative to croaking, he tried to force his eyes open again instead, only to groan in frustration when they still flatly refused to cooperate.

John’s hand squeezed his. Strong fingers, encircling his own with firm but gentle pressure. Deliberately reassuring.

“It’s okay,” John said. His voice was deliberately reassuring too, pitched low to soothe. “It’s okay, Sherlock, just relax. They’ve had you on some pretty heavy stuff, you’re going to be groggy.” Another squeeze to his hand. “You gave us a hell of a scare.”

Sherlock found himself obeying automatically; he tried to relax, tried to get his brain under control. The memories, though – they were still bobbing like corks in the water, slipping up and down so that he couldn’t get proper purchase on them. Mary. Mary had shot him. Hadn’t she? Had she? Hadn’t she?

He tried to say her name again, but his throat was still a desert and the word slurred out through his lips as if he was drunk. “Mary.” He swallowed, tried to swallow, wished fervently for a saliva oasis. “Mary.”

John’s hand was still in his, still squeezing. “Who?”

Oblivious. Sherlock’s effort hadn’t even made a dent. He’d have sworn the last one sounded at least a bit like ‘Mary’.

Obviously not, though. Damn these drugs. Damn his uncooperative eyelids. Damn and double damn his bobbing-cork memories.

Determined – bordering on desperate – he tried again. “Mary,” he gritted out, pushing the name through his teeth. It felt like sand on his throat. “Mary.”

“Yeah, all right, I got that,” John said. “And who’s Mary?”

That was wrong, Sherlock thought. That question was all wrong.

He tried to parse it and see if perhaps he’d misunderstood. No, he hadn’t. How could he misunderstand three words? Even drugged-stupid, there was no mistaking it. John had definitely asked, ‘And who’s Mary?’

But that didn’t make any sense. John wasn’t making any sense. That happened frequently, of course, but right now it was supremely irritating. Although, Sherlock realised, it did seem to be clearing his head a little. Aggravation was good for that.

He swallowed again, almost wincing in relief as his salivary glands finally began to wake up and actually function.

“Your wife,” he managed to say, feeling a grim little thrill of triumph when the words were less slurred this time. “Mary.”

There was a moment of silence, and then John echoed slowly, “My … wife.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said. At least they’d got that clarified.

“Sherlock …” John had his doctor voice on now; the calm, no nonsense bedside manner one. “You’ve been out for a good while, and they’ve had you on some heavy medication. You’re going to be a bit confused. It’s okay, it’ll pass.”

Sherlock wasn’t confused. Well, yes he was, but not about that. He tried to reason with John, who apparently needed reasoning with.

“I got shot,” he said. The words seemed to be coming a bit more easily now, although his memories were still surfacing and sinking in a very disconcerting fashion. And he _still_ couldn’t get his bloody eyes to open.

“Yes,” John agreed, sounding a bit relieved. “Yes, you did. And you scared the bloody hell out of me. You’ve been unconscious for nearly three days. Well, in and out, but you never seemed to properly come to. I was starting to think … well, anyway. Suffice to say that you scared the bloody hell out of me.”

Three days, Sherlock thought. Really? Although that did explain the cotton wool taste.

“Mary shot me,” he said, and then instantly wanted to bite the words back. Blunt. Too blunt. And should he have even said it? He still didn’t know what was going on, didn’t have nearly enough evidence to make a proper deduction. And John would be devastated. Mary had lied to him, she had lied over and over and over …

But John didn’t sound devastated. Instead he had his doctor voice on again.

“No, Sherlock,” he said. “Andrew Burke shot you. Down at the wharf, while we were chasing him, remember?” Soothing became mild scolding as he added, “And thank Christ you were a moving target and he’s not a very good shot, or you’d be dead. Things like this are why I tell you to bloody well wait for me.”

Andrew Burke. The name was familiar. Cork-memories bobbed as Sherlock tried to grab the right one. A case … yes, it had been a case. But it felt like so long ago. And what about Mary?

He asked the question, needed to hear the answer. “What about Mary?”

“You’ve lost me with the Mary thing,” John said patiently. “Who do you mean?”

Sherlock wanted to snarl, would have snarled if he’d been able to make his throat do it. This wasn’t making any sense and he didn’t like it.

“Mary,” he said as insistently as he could, hoping that it would bring John back to reality this time. “Mary Morstan. Mary _Watson_. Your wife.”

“Mary Morstan?” Now there was recognition in John’s voice, _finally_. “From the clinic?”

No, Sherlock thought. Not just ‘from the clinic’. Why was John not making any _sense_? What was wrong with him?

“Your _wife_ ,” he insisted. And it was ridiculous, because John should _know_ that. “ _Mary_.”

But John still refused to make sense. “Um, no,” he replied firmly. “Not my wife, Sherlock. Although she did ask me out once, before … well, before. Did I tell you that?”

“You married her,” Sherlock said, and the sheer confusion of it suddenly forced his eyes open, heavy eyelids and all, the mental need overpowering the physical exhaustion. “I was there.”

His vision wavered in and out, disorienting him as he struggled to focus. John’s face was an intermittent blur, but during the clear moments Sherlock was able to make out little details. John was unshaven, hadn’t shaved for at least two days. Bags under his eyes, dark circles; he hadn’t been sleeping much or well. Hair uncombed, sticking up on top the way it always did. It was getting too long, it would be bothering him. Years out of the military but he still liked his hair to be regulation short.

But he was also smiling, the worry lines in his forehead smoothing out. “Hey, there you are,” he said. His eyes moved purposefully back and forth across Sherlock’s face – observing Sherlock’s pupillary response. He liked what he saw; even through his wobbly view of the world Sherlock could see him visibly relax.

“It’s good to see you,” John said. His smile was warm with affection, and when it wavered back into a blur Sherlock tried harder to blink away the fog, wanting to see it again.

“And just so you know,” John added wryly, “I haven’t married anyone.”

John’s smile was nice, but he still wasn’t making any _sense_. Aggravated again, Sherlock tried his best to snarl and felt it fail on his face.

“But you did,” he said, because John _had_. “I know you did, I was there, I was …”

His voice began to fail too, tapering off into a hoarse rasp and then an unpleasantly dry cough. His salivary glands might be working now, but they weren’t doing nearly enough, and he was suddenly aware that the ghastly cotton wool taste in his mouth was making him terribly thirsty.

“Water,” John said firmly, and let go of Sherlock’s hand long enough to reach for the table beside his bed. Sherlock tried to follow the movement with his eyes, but the whole thing instantly turned bleary, and he shut them again in disgust. His body seemed determined to be uncooperative. It really wasn’t a good time for the transport to be failing him.

On the plus side, though, the rim of a glass was being pressed very gently against his lips. “Sip,” John instructed him. “Slowly.”

Sherlock opened his mouth and took a cautious sip. Oh God, yes, it was the antidote to cotton wool. He sipped again, more eagerly.

“Careful,” John warned him. “Not too much.” He let Sherlock take several more sips before he took the glass away, though.

Sherlock would have liked to take it back, but since he couldn’t even lift his eyelids, he doubted he was going to have any better luck with his arms. Besides, there was no arguing with John when he was being a doctor.

“You can have more in a few minutes,” John said, and Sherlock supposed that would have to do. “Just take it very slowly for now.”

“Cotton wool,” Sherlock explained, enjoying the sudden wet feel of his tongue. He rolled it experimentally against the roof of his mouth and was pleased when it cooperated. At least something was cooperating.

He tried to remember what he’d been saying before the cotton wool had interrupted him. It was much harder than it should have been. It felt like there was cotton wool in his _brain_ , as well as in his mouth. A cotton wool pond full of bobbing-cork memories. And while that was an interesting configuration for a brain, it wasn’t any good for _thinking_.

Wait. Yes. He had it, in a little cascade of corks. He’d been shot. Mary. John’s wife. John’s _marriage_. Sherlock said yes and John – John said _no_ , of all the ridiculous things.

“I was your best man at the wedding,” he said, because surely that had to prove it. A best man was certainly proof that a wedding had taken place.

And it _had_ taken place. He remembered it, he knew he did. It was fuzzy, but it was there … wasn’t it?

It was. Surely it was. He remembered … he remembered the bloody _suit_.

“Christ,” John said lightly. He sounded amused. Sherlock wished he could get his eyes to open again, so that he could see John’s face. He liked John’s amused face.

“I dread to think of what kind of speech you made,” John said, still in the same tone. Still amused. Sherlock still wanted to see it.

And the speech, John had said. He had made a speech, hadn’t he? He must have; he’d been the best man. Best men made speeches. It was traditional, or something.

He couldn’t remember it. That memory had bobbed out of sight, swallowed up by the cotton wool pond. But he’d been the best man, so he must have made a speech. And it had been for John, so it must have been a good one. He’d have made sure it was, for John.

“It was an excellent speech,” he said. He tried to ignore the way his tongue tripped up clumsily on ‘excellent’.

“I’m sure it was,” John said. He was being tolerant now. Sherlock could tell just from the sound of his voice. He knew John’s tolerating voice even when he couldn’t see the tolerating face that went with it.

“You should know,” he replied. It didn’t sound nearly as acerbic as he wanted it to. “You were there.”

“This is your drug-induced dream we’re talking about, not mine,” John said. “I wouldn’t know a thing about it. Although I suppose I should be worried about you dreaming that I married someone else, but frankly I’m too bloody glad to see you awake to care.”

This was making _no sense at all_ , Sherlock thought in sudden fury. And _what_ had John just said? A drug-induced dream? A _dream_? Nonsense, that was nonsense!

Incensed, Sherlock wrenched his eyes open again, keeping them that way through sheer force of will, and tried as hard as he could to focus on John’s face. It wasn’t easy when everything kept wobbling around, but he made himself ignore it.

“Nonsense,” he said, in the most emphatic voice he could manage. It wasn’t, very, and he attempted another snarl to compensate.

John took his hand again and seemed quite unbothered by the snarl. “Which bit?” he asked mildly.

John was an idiot. It ought to be _obvious_ which bit.

“Wasn’t a dream,” Sherlock said. “Nonsense.”

“I can assure you that it was a dream,” John said. “I think I’d remember getting married.”

Sherlock had to admit that was probably true. Unless …

“You could be drugged,” he said. He hadn’t seen any evidence of it, but he knew he was missing rather a lot right at the moment.

“You _are_ drugged,” John replied, wry. But he squeezed Sherlock’s hand again, another of those deliberately reassuring squeezes. “It’s okay, Sherlock. You’re going to be fine. You’re just confused, but it’ll pass. You just need to rest and take it slowly.”

Confused, Sherlock thought. Yes, he was, he really, really _was_. He had thought … he had been so sure … and now John was saying … and it didn’t make sense, none of it made any _sense_.

Sherlock closed his eyes again – it was a relief to get away from the wavering; it was making him seasick – and tried to breathe. It was suddenly difficult. His chest was tight, his breath was coming too quick and too short. His bobbing-cork memories (and were they all even real memories? He wasn’t sure anymore) seemed to be bobbing even faster, spiralling up and down as if they were bouncing on a particularly choppy sea. (And where had the cotton wool pond gone? It had been irritatingly fuzzy but much less turbulent.)

His pulse pounded, like an echoing drumbeat in his ears. Or was that the sea his memories were floating on? It was very loud, if it was. The waves were crashing up onto the shore of his brain. That couldn’t be good. The salt water would get into the fissures and then it would rust. He didn’t want it to rust …

“Sherlock!”

John’s voice broke into the disconnected rattle of Sherlock’s thoughts, scattering them wide. And he was still talking, the voice of the doctor again, calm and very firm.

“Hey, come on, you need to calm down.” His voice echoed in Sherlock’s ears almost like the waves had. “You’re getting too upset. Breathe, Sherlock. Slow breaths. Come on, you can do it. In and out.”

In and out. Ridiculous thing to say. Sherlock knew perfectly well how to breathe. He’d been doing it with efficiency his whole life.

“In and out,” John said again, still ridiculous, and he was standing now, Sherlock realised, leaning over the bed with a hand on Sherlock’s chest. “Come on, Sherlock, or you’re going to have them all in here fussing over you and I know you hate that. Slow breaths. Just breathe and it’ll pass.”

It was true enough about the fussing. Sherlock didn’t want to be fussed over unless it was John doing it. It was all right when John did it, but no one else. He knew very well how to breathe, of course he did, but since John seemed so set on it he would do it John’s way. He tried the slow in and out thing that John kept going on about.

“Good,” John said. His encouraging doctor voice, now. “That’s good, well done. More like that. Slow and steady.”

_Wins the race_ , Sherlock thought, the memory dredged up seemingly from nowhere. That was from a book, wasn’t it? A childhood book. Sometimes those wouldn’t delete no matter how he tried. Turtles. No, tortoises.

“It’s _The Tortoise and the Hare_ , you git,” John said. That was odd; when had John learned to read minds? “Now stop trying to talk and focus on breathing, before we have them all piling in here.”

_The Tortoise and the Hare_. Yes, that was it. Stupid story. Mycroft had read it to him. He’d liked _Treasure Island_ much better.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum …

“Oh my God, would you shut up,” John said, and now it was his exasperated ‘Sherlock, you’re annoying me’ voice, not the encouraging doctor one. “Stop talking and worry about breathing. _Listen_ to me, Sherlock. You need to calm down right now. Don’t think about anything but breathing. In and out _slowly_. Do it or I’ll bloody smother you with the pillow.”

He’d already been shot and now John was threatening to smother him. That was very unkind, not to mention counterproductive since on the other hand John was also telling him to breathe. He couldn’t be smothered _and_ breathe; it was simply impossible to do those two things together. Honestly, John was a doctor, he ought to know that.

Sherlock became vaguely aware of an irritatingly sharp beeping noise right in his ear, and realised that it was his heart monitor. It did seem to be going at an impressive pace. Perhaps John had a point about the calming down thing.

Sherlock wasn’t about to actually admit that John had a point, but he did try to slow his breathing. It wasn’t that he was panicking, exactly, just that he was a bit agitated, but he could agree that his lungs and heart were working rather harder than was comfortable. If he calmed down, then everything would slow down and it would feel much better.

Another memory surfaced, although Sherlock had absolutely no idea if this one was real or not. Mycroft – and how had Mycroft even been there? Sherlock had no idea about that, either – but Mycroft had told him to calm down, to think of something that would help him to calm down. And he had reached out desperately into his mind palace and thought of … Redbeard. Of all things, Redbeard.

Had that really happened? Or had he dreamed it? Or had it really happened and then he’d dreamed about it as well? Sherlock hadn’t a clue. But he had the vague feeling that it had worked, if in fact it had happened at all. Redbeard was … comforting. Redbeard had always been comforting.

John’s hand on his chest was also comforting. It felt as though it was holding him steady, anchoring him while he struggled to find a rhythm that his lungs could maintain. Hoping it would double the effectiveness, Sherlock tried to think about both of those things, Redbeard and John’s hand on his chest. Good things. Comforting things, calming things.

“That’s good,” John said. His voice didn’t seem to echo as much this time. “Very good. Keep it up. Just keep breathing. Slowly. In and out. You can do it.”

Of course he could do it, Sherlock thought. He was doing it. All right, perhaps it wasn’t quite as easy as it might have been, but he could certainly do it.

He kept doing it. John’s hand stayed on his chest, applying just enough pressure that Sherlock could feel it without being at all constricted by it. John was good at judging things like that. He always seemed to know just how to touch. Sometimes that was good. Sometimes it was even better.

That last thought was hazy, unfocused, and so Sherlock was taken quite by surprise when it set off another minor flood of memories, only this time instead of corks bobbing in the waves it was bits and pieces and fragments everywhere, as if someone had shattered a window inside his brain. Startled, Sherlock gasped, gulped, and promptly lost his rhythm. His breath stuttered back into hitches, and somewhere above the insistent chirping of his heart monitor he distantly heard himself starting to wheeze.

John’s other hand settled firmly onto his shoulder, the first one still rock steady on his chest. “Oh, no you don’t,” John said. His voice had changed yet again; now it was low and intent and stern, pushing itself forcefully into Sherlock’s awareness. “You listen to me, Sherlock. You’re going to calm down and breathe. You listen to my voice, don’t focus on anything except that, and you breathe. Do you hear me? In – come on, Sherlock, _in_. Breathe in. Bloody do as you’re told.”

Sherlock was sure he ought to be indignant about being instructed to ‘do as he was told’, but somehow he wasn’t. Somehow, coming from John, it was all right. It was funny, how there seemed to be so many things like that. All right when it was John, but not when it was anyone else.

So he wasn’t indignant. He also wasn’t in much of a position to disobey, not when his head was getting light – lighter – and his shallow, gulping breaths were starting to make his chest hurt.

And John’s voice was comforting too. As good as John’s hands and Redbeard were. Sherlock could focus on that and breathe. In, John had said. _Come on, Sherlock, in_.

Straining to make his lungs obey, Sherlock breathed in. He had to struggle for it, but he did it.

“Good,” John said, still all low-intent-stern. “Now _out_.” Commanding, nothing less.

Sherlock breathed out.

“Good,” John said again. “With me, now. In … and out. In … and out.”

And so it went on. Sherlock dimly mused, even as he obediently breathed in and out, that it must have been very dull for John to have to keep saying that over and over and over and over again. But then, John could be remarkably determined about things when he wanted to be. It was a trait Sherlock appreciated rather a lot.

And it was effective. Sherlock couldn’t deny that. John kept talking and Sherlock kept breathing, because it was either breathe in time with John’s voice or ignore him and hyperventilate. Sherlock wasn’t really in any position to ignore him, and anyway he didn’t want to hyperventilate; hyperventilating was uncomfortable.

And quite honestly, even if hyperventilating hadn’t been a factor, Sherlock didn’t _want_ to ignore John. It was good to hear John’s voice. It was comforting. It was _good_. He’d missed John so much, while he’d been gone, and then after he’d come back and then John had been gone, and then John had got married and he’d been even more gone …

Except that John hadn’t got married. Had he? Hadn’t he? Had he? Now some of Sherlock’s memories said yes, and some said no, and obviously it couldn’t be both, so it really was all terribly confusing. He was actually quite grateful to be able to just put it all aside for the moment and focus simply on John’s voice, and on doing what John’s voice said.

And it worked. Well, Sherlock supposed that it would work. John was a doctor; he knew how to do these things. After some interminable number of ins and outs, Sherlock’s breathing had settled back into a rhythm that wasn’t threatening to choke him, and while he still felt quite a bit like he’d been wrung out and tossed headfirst into a skip, it was nevertheless a great improvement over gasping fruitlessly for air.

“That’s a bit more like it,” John finally said, and Sherlock wondered vaguely if he was relieved to be able to say something other than ‘in’ and ‘out’. Words began to sound meaningless if you said them often enough in a short spate of time. He wondered if to John, ‘in’ and ‘out’ had been starting to sound like ‘gibberish’ and ‘other gibberish’.

If they had, John didn’t mention it. “That’s much better,” he went on. “No more upsetting yourself like that, got it? You’re not in any state to have strops right now.”

Sherlock would have liked to protest that, but he had to admit that his own body had just rather proven John’s point. He settled for giving a grudging nod. Well, it felt grudging. He could accept that it might not have looked it.

“Good,” John said, and the hand that was on Sherlock’s shoulder lifted off. The hand on his chest followed suit, and Sherlock found himself rather wishing that at least one of them would come back. But then he heard the shifting of fabric and the creak of vinyl as John sat down, and a moment later John’s hand curled back around his.

“Now I think you need to rest more,” John said. “Go back to sleep, Sherlock. I’ll be here, I promise.”

That sounded good, Sherlock thought, especially if John kept holding his hand. Wait – no it didn’t. Well, the hand holding part did, and the John being there part did, but the sleep part didn’t. He wasn’t ready to go back to sleep yet. He hadn’t made sense of anything yet.

He shook his head, trying to pry his eyes back open. “No,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Sherlock.” John’s voice was firm but patient. His doctor voice again. “You’ve worn yourself out. You need to rest.”

“Not _yet_ ,” Sherlock insisted. He’d managed to get his eyelids to go up and mostly stay up, and it hadn’t been easy, so he wasn’t about to waste it. He turned his head and John’s face hovered in front of him, blurred and etched across with wobbly concern.

“Whatever it is, it can wait,” John said, but Sherlock shook his head. No, no it couldn’t wait. He didn’t want to go back to sleep and wake up again not knowing what was real and what wasn’t. He needed things to make sense, and right now they didn’t at all.

“No,” he said, putting as much determination into his voice as he could. “Questions first.”

John sighed, giving him a look of mild reproach that Sherlock knew meant he was going to agree.

“All right, fine,” John said, sure enough. “But no more performances like that, all right? I’ll answer your questions, but you need to stay calm.”

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed at once, because he didn’t especially want to go through that again either. And John would probably become very bored if he had to say nothing but ‘in’ and ‘out’ for another five minutes.

“Okay,” John said. “Let’s have it, then.”

Sherlock took a deep breath. He’d been actively ignoring his cascades of conflicting memories in favour of breathing (and listening to John) but now, if he wanted to have his questions answered, he was going to have to look at them again.

Accessing them wasn’t going to be hard. He hadn’t had time to put them in a proper room in his mind palace. Rather the effect had been more like throwing them all into a cupboard that only had a curtain instead of a door, and then pulling the curtain across so that just for the moment, he couldn’t see the mess. Of course, since there was only a curtain, the mess was all threatening to spill out at any moment. (Sherlock had once had a cupboard in a flat that was actually like that; no door, just a curtain, and things were always falling out of it or threatening to. Mycroft had come round, once, and called the place an absolute tip. Sherlock had called him an interfering prick and told him to bugger off.)

But he digressed, or at least his brain did; it seemed to be going off on all sorts of funny tangents. Accessing the memories wasn’t going to be difficult. Staying calm while he accessed them, however, might be. Sherlock wasn’t sure, but the conflict between the things he remembered and the other things he remembered, not to mention the things John was telling him, had certainly set off a reaction before. But then, forewarned was forearmed. Perhaps this time would be easier. And it wasn’t as though he had a choice. He wanted to know what was going on, because it was disconcerting to have so many memories that didn’t make sense.

Looking carefully at John – and he’d managed to blink most of the blur out of his vision again; that was good – he decided to start over at the beginning.

“Mary shot me,” he said.

“That’s not a question,” John pointed out mildly, but he answered it anyway. “No, Mary Morstan did not shoot you. That bloody bastard Burke shot you while we were chasing him.”

Sherlock frowned, thought for a moment, and realised that the memory _was_ there. Burke had been a case. A double murderer. They had found him. They had chased him. But it felt like a long time ago. It felt like _years_ ago.

“Are you sure?” he asked John warily.

“Quite sure,” John said, his tone becoming briefly grim. “I was there.”

There was nothing on John’s face or body to indicate a lie. Sherlock knew when John was lying. Even in his current state, he was sure he’d be able to pick it.

“What about Mary?” he asked suspiciously, because that really was the question, wasn’t it? If Mary hadn’t shot him, why did he think that she had? If she hadn’t married John, why did he think that she had? And if she hadn’t done either of those things, then … well, then why did he think that she _had_?

John gave a low chuckle. “It’s absolutely beyond me why you’ve got all fixated on Mary,” he said. “You’ve only met her – what, twice? And you barely glanced at her. But suddenly you’re convinced that I married her and she shot you.”

And still, there was nothing Sherlock could see, nothing on John _anywhere_ to indicate a lie. There wasn’t even a _hint_ that John was lying.

And if John wasn’t lying, then that could only mean – by process of elimination – that he was telling the truth.

Sherlock swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth. “And … you didn’t?” he asked, because he needed to be sure. He needed to hear John say it. “Marry her?”

John snorted. “No, once again, I did not marry her. I haven’t married anyone.”

And suddenly, somehow, that memory was there too. Or rather it wasn’t there; Sherlock found, bewilderingly, that he could remember John _not_ being married at the same time as he could remember him _being_ married. It was like having two alternate scenarios side by side, like waking up from the most vivid dream in the world, only he still couldn’t choose which one felt more real.

It wasn’t making him hyperventilate this time, though. In fact, he felt reasonably calm, which was good. Having John there helped. Hearing that John was not, in fact, married to Sherlock’s would-be murderer helped, too.

Although it was still more than a little confusing. The memories were starting to spill slowly out of the cupboard now; he was able to see more and more of them, and having what seemed to be two completely separate, completely distinct, completely conflicting sets of recollections was a very odd feeling.

Of course, _obviously_ , only one set could be the truth – but when they both felt equally real, it was very hard to pick which one.

But John had said. John had _said_. And John hadn’t been lying.

“I was so sure,” Sherlock said, because he _had_ been sure. “John, I was at your wedding.”

John’s lips quirked up into a faint smile. “Was it nice?”

“Yes,” Sherlock answered automatically, only to amend it with, “Well …”

“Well what?”

Sherlock swallowed again. On second thoughts, he didn’t want to finish that sentence. “Well nothing,” he said instead. “You seemed happy.”

“Did I?” John replied. “And what about you? Were you happy?”

Why did Sherlock suddenly feel the pressing need to actually be honest? And how in the hell did his regrettably honest answer manage to escape before he could even think to stop it? “No,” he blurted out, and almost cringed. God, why had he said that? All right, it was true, but that didn’t mean he had to _say_ it.

“Good,” John said calmly, surprising him. “I don’t like to think you would be happy to see me marrying someone else. Wouldn’t say much for us, would it?” He squeezed Sherlock’s hand, gently but with obvious meaning.

Oh.

_Oh_.

Well … _yes_. Yes, he _did_ have memories of that, too. They were there in his head all of a sudden, tumbling out of the cupboard in a little avalanche of images. Him and John. No, not just him and John. Him and John together, him-and-John. Sherlock-and-John.

What he’d wanted so much. What he’d wanted so much and had mourned for when John had married Mary.

Except that John apparently _hadn’t_ married Mary. And Sherlock apparently _had_ what he had wanted so very, very much. Sherlock-and-John.

“We’re …” Sherlock hesitated, almost afraid to say the word. But he had to be sure, had to confirm what was real and what wasn’t. Very cautiously, his eyes on John’s face, he offered, “Together?”

John smiled, a more genuine smile this time. “Of course we’re bloody together.”

“Oh,” Sherlock said blankly. And then: “So you really didn’t get married.”

“No,” John said fondly. “I really didn’t get married.”

“You’re sure?” Sherlock asked, just to double check.

John rolled his eyes, but his smile lingered. “Quite sure.”

“Oh,” Sherlock said again. He tried to think of something else to say, but failed utterly. “Oh.”

“Oh indeed,” John said wryly. “Will you go back to sleep now?”

“No!” Sherlock said at once, then quickly toned it down when he saw the alarm on John’s face. “No. I’m fine. I have more questions.”

“You’re not the least bit fine,” John told him, although to Sherlock’s relief he didn’t say that he wouldn’t answer any more questions. And if he’d been really serious about Sherlock having to go back to sleep, he would have said so.

Sherlock could admit that John had a point. ‘Fine’ was probably a bit of an exaggeration. Even leaving aside his physical state – which had recently involved a bullet and thus, understandably, wasn’t the best – his mental state was obviously a bit precarious, too.

But it was better than it had been. He still felt very fuzzy, and very scattered, but it was definitely improved over how he had felt when he’d first woken up. The fuzz was getting … less fuzzy. He could think more clearly. He could remember more, even if he was still having trouble working out which memories were real and which ones weren’t. And the assurance that John hadn’t in fact got married (and that Sherlock hadn’t in fact been almost murdered by John’s wife) had made him feel considerably relieved.

The further assurance that John was with him – really properly with him, that they were Sherlock-and-John – had made him feel considerably more than relieved.

He still had more questions, though, and he needed the answers and he needed them now. He had to know about the rest. What had really happened? What hadn’t really happened? He couldn’t sleep until he knew. He _wouldn’t_ sleep until he knew.

John would tell him, though. Sherlock would ask and John would tell him. The only problem was that there were so many questions – or perhaps one huge question, depending on how you wanted to look at it – that he wasn’t quite sure where to start asking.

Perhaps the best thing to do was to start at the beginning. And not just the John-getting-married-except-that-he-actually-didn’t beginning. The beginning-beginning. Or … well, all right, the second beginning-beginning. Since they’d had two of them, now.

“I came back,” he said. That was the second beginning-beginning. He’d start from there.

It was also not a question, but John didn’t point that out this time. Instead, he frowned. “You came back from where?”

“From being away,” Sherlock said, wondering how on earth John could have misunderstood such a simple statement. “From being … you know.” Because John did know, and Sherlock still didn’t like talking about it.

“Oh,” John said, understanding dawning on his face. “Christ, you’re having trouble that far back? Sherlock, Jesus.” His expression was suddenly serious, the worry lines reforming on his forehead. “I think we might need to get a neurological consult in here. I don’t like this.”

“No,” Sherlock said urgently. He didn’t want a neurological consult. He didn’t want any doctors except John. “No, I can remember, I can. It’s just … there are two. Two sets. Two alternatives. And I was so sure that I knew which one was real, but now you’re saying that it isn’t, and … I need to know which parts are and which parts aren’t. That’s all. My brain isn’t impaired. Well, not like that. I’d know if it was.”

John didn’t look entirely convinced, but he nodded, slowly. “Okay,” he said, adding in a firmer tone, “For _now_ , okay. But I still think we need to get you checked out by a neurologist.”

“Later,” Sherlock said, fully intending ‘later’ to mean ‘never’. “Just tell me. I came back.”

“Well, yes, obviously you came back,” John said. “You’re here.”

“Did I come and find you in a restaurant?” Sherlock asked, but his brain was already supplying him with the answer: no. That couldn’t be right, because Mary had been there, John had been with Mary, and John was saying that hadn’t happened, he wasn’t with Mary. “No … no, I didn’t.”

“No, you didn’t,” John confirmed. “You came to the clinic. In disguise, no less. And you damn near gave me a heart attack.”

Yes. Yes, Sherlock remembered that. The visit to the clinic, the disguise. And John. John had been shocked. Angry. Furious. Incandescent.

Wonderful.

“You were angry,” he said, and John chuckled, drily.

“Bloody hell, yes, I was angry,” he said. “I was absolutely bloody furious.”

“You hit me,” Sherlock said. He remembered that, too. Actually, he remembered it twice.

“Yeah,” John confirmed, with a half smile. “And I’m still not apologising for it.”

And just like that there was another memory: John, turning up in 221B that same night after Sherlock had first come to him, cold and dishevelled after storming around London for hours, still angry, very angry, but real and solid and there. And Sherlock had been surprised, and glad to see him, and hoping for forgiveness, and John had pushed him up against the closed door, and eyed the bruise that he’d left on Sherlock’s face and said roughly, “I’m not saying sorry for that.” And then John had kissed him, locked their mouths together and kissed him, hard and needy and desperate. The first kiss, the first time.

That had happened. That had really happened.

Sherlock breathed in, breathed out, closed his eyes. Assimilated the memory. That one had happened; it had really happened.

He pushed his eyes open again. Sherlock-and-John. Yes. After that, they had been Sherlock-and-John.

“We didn’t get thrown out of the restaurant,” he said, more confidently.

“Nope,” John said. “Because we weren’t in one. Mary and Rebecca did come in to see what all the shouting was about, though.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, and that was interesting, really, because that meant Mary had been there, in a roundabout way. She just hadn’t been there in the way that Sherlock had thought she had. In the other version, the not-real one.

Just to be sure, he said, “But you didn’t marry her.”

John rolled his eyes. “No, for Christ’s sake, I did not marry her. I never even dated her. She asked once, before you came back. I said no. I was a wreck, it didn’t seem fair to date anyone at that point. And then you came back.”

Yes. Yes. Sherlock had seen that, her attraction to John. He remembered seeing that. He remembered seeing …

“She’s a liar,” he said. Yes. Yes. He had seen that too.

“Is she?” John looked mildly interested. “Well, she did once say she liked my yellow shirt, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“No,” Sherlock said, wanting to explain. “You married her – well, you didn’t, but I thought you had – and she – she’s –”

He struggled to describe it. The words were suddenly difficult to find, seeming to slip away from him before he could grab the right ones.

John squeezed his hand again. “It’s okay,” he said soothingly. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. It didn’t happen, Sherlock. It was a dream, that’s all.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said. Yes. A dream. Yes. “But it was so real.” It had been so, so real.

John grinned suddenly, a quick flash of mirth taking some of the weariness from his face. “You sound like you’ve just been unplugged from the Matrix.”

Sherlock looked at him blankly, and John chuckled. “Never mind. Maybe I’ll make you watch it one day. You never know, you might like it. You did all right with James Bond.”

“Yes!” Sherlock said. Yes, _yes_. How did John always manage to do that? How did he always know exactly what Sherlock needed, even when Sherlock couldn’t tell him? “She’s James Bond!”

John’s eyebrows went up. “Sorry, what?”

“Mary,” Sherlock said. “She’s James Bond.”

John’s eyebrows climbed higher. “You dreamed that I married James Bond?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, then amended for the sake of accuracy, “If James Bond was a woman.”

“Right,” John said blankly. “Okay, then. Do I even want to know how she’s James Bond?”

“She’s like him,” Sherlock tried to explain. Why were the words so hard to find all of a sudden? They’d all been right there just a few moments ago. Where had they gone?

“She’s trained like him,” he said. He knew it, he’d seen it. “Trained to kill. Ready to kill. She almost killed me.” But she hadn’t, had she? He’d dreamed that part. It still felt real. “She shot me.”

“No, she didn’t,” John told him patiently, and Sherlock nodded along with him.

“I know, I know she didn’t, but I thought she did. She shot me and you didn’t care.”

And that had been the worst part, the very worst. Worse than getting shot, worse than being sent away, worse than anything. John didn’t care and it was worse than anything ever.

“Sherlock.” John’s voice was suddenly very low, tight with some harsh mixture of emotion. “I can assure you that when someone shoots you, I care very much indeed.” He took a breath and made an obvious attempt to lighten his tone. “Ask Greg. He’s the one who had to pull me off that bastard.”

There was a sudden warm feeling spreading all the way from Sherlock’s toes right up to his scalp, a pleasant, tingling warmth that felt oddly like sunshine. John cared. John _did_ care. He cared that Sherlock had got shot. All right, Mary wasn’t the one who had done it, but still, John cared.

Suddenly wanting to hear more confirmation of that, Sherlock said, “Mycroft was sending me to my death. And you didn’t care about that either.”

John cocked an eyebrow at him, then sighed and gave Sherlock’s hand another squeeze. “Sounds like there were a lot of things I didn’t care about.”

“We were never going to see each other again,” Sherlock told him. He could still remember the grief of that, grief that had only been compounded by John’s apparent unconcern about it. John hadn’t cared, and that had _hurt_.

Although … he had to admit that it did seem more distant now. The memory wasn’t the sure and aching thing it had been when he had first woken up. He could certainly still remember it well enough, but now it seemed almost … faded.

“If we were never going to see each other again, I would bloody. Well. Care,” John said. He did that when he was being emphatic, made single words into sentences, with audible full stops. Sherlock found it rather endearing, even when it was being used to scold him.

“And if Mycroft was sending you to your death,” John was going on, very firmly, “then he’d bloody well have to go through me to do it.”

The words set off another wave of pleasant, sunshiny warmth. John would stand up to Mycroft for him. John wouldn’t let Mycroft send him away without a fight. Because he cared.

Sherlock found himself smiling, even though his vision seemed to have quite suddenly got rather blurry again. He closed his eyes for a moment to try to clear it, only to find that getting his eyelids to actually go back up was something of a struggle.

John made a soft sound that Sherlock put somewhere between fondness and amusement. “And I think that’s enough questions for now,” he said. “You’re about to fall asleep again, which is exactly what you need. I promise I’ll be right here, and if you have more questions when you wake up then I’ll answer them then.”

Sherlock had managed to win the battle with his eyelids, but to his annoyance the blur hadn’t gone away. He frowned at John’s wavering face. “But I’m not finished,” he said.

“No, you’re not,” John said, and his tone told Sherlock that he was talking about something else entirely. “And thank God for that. But you are recovering from being shot, and as happy as I am to see you awake, you need to get some rest.”

Sherlock couldn’t deny that the idea of getting some rest was quite appealing. A heavy, drowsy lassitude seemed to have descended on him from nowhere, making all his limbs feel suddenly weighted down. Giving in to it and going back to sleep sounded very good.

But at the same time, he also _didn’t_ want to go back to sleep. He was tired but he liked this, he liked having John here talking to him, he liked knowing that they were Sherlock-and-John and that John hadn’t left him and married someone else and the someone else hadn’t shot him and Sherlock hadn’t shot another person to save them and Mycroft _wasn’t_ sending him to his death. He liked it, he liked it so very much. He liked knowing that it was real. What if he went back to sleep and the next time he woke up he found he couldn’t work out what was real and what wasn’t all over again?

Or, even worse, much _much_ worse, what if the next time he woke up he found that the _other_ version was the real one instead?

That decided him. “No,” he said, and ignored the fact that his voice had begun to slur again. “I don’t want to sleep.”

John’s hand was still in his. John’s other hand came up to curl around the other side, both of them cupping Sherlock’s hand.

“Sherlock, love,” John said fondly, and hearing John actually call him ‘love’ almost made Sherlock melt into the bed with happiness. “I don’t think you’ve got a lot of choice. You’re falling asleep right now.”

“No.” Sherlock shook his head obstinately, and engaged in a flurry of blinking to try to get the fuzz out of his vision. “I am not.”

“You might think it’s just transport, but it’s going to win in the end,” John said, and even through his fuzzy vision Sherlock could see his wry smile. “Come on, Sherlock. You’re tired. Go back to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up and you can ask more questions then, if you still want to.”

Every time John said ‘sleep’, it seemed to make Sherlock want to do it a little bit more. That was unacceptable. Sherlock tried to explain, hoping that John would stop saying it. “But I don’t want to,” he said, as earnestly as he could. “What if next time it’s the other one?”

“The other what?” John asked, and Sherlock frowned. John didn’t understand. Sherlock tried harder, groping for the words.

“The _other_ one,” he said. “When you left me and got married. And Mary shot me and Mycroft was sending me away. And you don’t care.”

“Sherlock.” John’s voice was suddenly very soft, Sherlock’s name a quiet exhale of breath. “That’s not going to happen.”

“It might,” Sherlock insisted. Because it might.

“No,” John said. Firmly, this time. “It’s not going to happen. Sherlock, listen to me. It was a dream. A very vivid dream, obviously, but just a dream. You’re recovering from major surgery, you’re very tired and you’re on heavy medication, and you were confused. This is real. I’m real. We’re real. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t get married. Mary didn’t shoot you – although you did get shot. But Mycroft isn’t sending you anywhere. And I care. I care, Sherlock. I bloody love you and I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

Oh. _Oh_. John had said … John had said _love_ , I bloody love you, he had said _love_.

Sherlock felt himself melt a bit deeper into the mattress, his toes curling up in sudden, sleepy elation.

“I love you,” he said. Blurted. “Too. As well. I love you.”

The blur in his vision was terrible now, his eyelids fluttering as he fought to keep them open and they fought to close in spite of his efforts. But blurry or not, John’s warm, affectionate smile was still a wonderful thing to behold.

“Glad to hear it,” John said. “I’d be bloody pissed off if you’d forgotten that.”

“Couldn’t,” Sherlock told him. The flutter became too much to deal with and he reluctantly gave up the battle, letting his eyes close. “I couldn’t forget. I never forgot. That’s why Mycroft was sending me away.”

He couldn’t see John’s face anymore, but he could hear the frown in his voice. “Because you love me?”

“Because I killed someone for you,” Sherlock said. So no, and yes, he supposed. He’d done it because he loved John. He’d dreamed he did it because he loved John. It hadn’t happened, but the why still counted. Or at least he thought it did.

There was a moment of silence, and then John’s hands squeezed around his, tightly. “Don’t do that,” John said. “Okay?”

John’s voice was tense, flat. His worried voice. Sherlock had liked it better when John was saying _love_.

“I didn’t,” he pointed out, hoping that the worried voice would go away. “You said it was a dream.”

“It was a dream,” John said. “But don’t do it anyway.”

“You did it for me,” Sherlock said faintly. And John had, John had done it for him when they’d barely known each other for a day. When Sherlock had killed – who had it been? Oh, it was all getting faded now – it had seemed like the least he could do. He had hurt John so much, and he loved him so much. What else could he do?

John sighed, squeezed his hand again. “Yeah, I suppose I did. Even so. I don’t ever want to be in a position where Mycroft is trying to send you away from me. So don’t do it.”

“I didn’t want to,” Sherlock told him. Something made him add, “Mycroft didn’t want to either. Send me away. He said it would break his heart.”

There was another brief, silent pause, and then he felt John’s hands slowly relax around his.

“I knew all that pretending to hate each other was rubbish,” John said, with a soft chuckle.

Sherlock wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer, and it wasn’t at all because he was rapidly becoming too tired to think of one. Fortunately, he didn’t need to; John was still talking.

“He’s been here,” John was saying. “Every day. Worried as hell, although of course he was pretending not to be. Greg has, too, and Mrs Hudson. Molly popped in as well.” He chuckled again, and Sherlock knew he was smiling. “Mrs Hudson kept bringing me food. And telling you off because she said she knew you could hear her.”

Sherlock had the feeling that he actually might have been able to hear her. He did seem to have vague memories of being scolded about something, and then getting frustrated because he hadn’t seemed to be able to tell her to shut up. He’d settled for ignoring her instead.

“Are you asleep yet?” John asked then, and Sherlock shook his head.

“No.”

“Well, go to sleep,” John told him. Sherlock sighed, because it really was terribly tempting now. Having his eyes closed was more comfortable than having them open, but it wasn’t nearly enough to stave off the exhaustion that seemed to be swamping him.

Tempting or not, though, he still didn’t want to. John had said that it wouldn’t happen, but Sherlock was still anxious about the possibility of waking up to find that reality was the other version instead. After having had a taste of this one, the thought of going back to the other one was … unappealing. Unwanted. Unbearable.

But the problem was that John seemed to be right – _you might think it’s just transport, but it’s going to win in the end_ – and Sherlock honestly wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out against his body’s need for sleep. Which was dreadful, really. He was good at ignoring his body’s needs. He’d trained himself to do it. He could stay awake for days, go without food, and still be brilliant. John hated it when he did that. Not the brilliant part, but the staying awake for days and going without food part. But Sherlock liked that he hated it because it meant that he cared.

He really, really didn’t want to wake up and find himself back in the one where John didn’t care.

“Are you sure it won’t be the other one next time?” he asked, and he hardly cared that he sounded almost childishly plaintive. He _felt_ almost childishly plaintive. “I like this one.”

“It won’t be the other one,” John said, without hesitation. Sherlock heard the sudden creak of his chair, felt the shift as John stood up, but before he could even attempt to pry his eyelids back up again to see what John was doing, he felt the nearness of another body and the soft, dry press of lips against his own.

Oh. _Oh_. Oh, he liked this one so very, very much.

John didn’t kiss him for nearly long enough, hardly more than a peck, but it still made Sherlock feel sunshiny warm all over. John hovered above him, still holding Sherlock’s hand in both of his, and spoke in a low, firm tone that did something pleasantly squirmy to Sherlock’s insides.

“I’m here,” John said. “And I’m going to be here when you wake up. You don’t have to be afraid, Sherlock. I promise.”

Sherlock might have liked to protest that he wasn’t afraid, but it would have been a lie. Normally that wouldn’t bother him, but he didn’t want to lie to John. Lying to John would be … not good.

“I am,” he said.

He was immediately glad that he’d admitted it because it got him another kiss. It was too brief, again, but he liked it very much anyway.

“I know,” John said quietly. “I’ve been afraid too. I’ve been bloody terrified. But I’m not anymore, because I know you’re going to be fine. And you don’t have to be afraid either, because I’m going to be right here. Okay?”

It was okay. Sherlock wanted John to be right there. The idea of John not being right there was what was so frightening, much more than being shot or being sent away or even Moriarty …

Oh, Sherlock thought. That was funny. He’d almost forgotten about that part. He could hardly remember it even now, just faded, fragmented bits and pieces. John’s presence, John’s realness, had pushed it all away into the background.

“Moriarty said I’d like being dead because nobody bothers you,” he said. The words were slurred again, as if he was drunk. He’d been drunk with John, he remembered that. It had been John’s stag night. No it hadn’t, because John hadn’t got married; that was wrong. It had been something else. A celebration? New Year’s Eve, had it been New Year’s Eve? They’d got very drunk. Sherlock didn’t often drink. John had thought it was hilarious. He’d had to undress Sherlock because Sherlock had been having so much trouble with the buttons. He hadn’t seemed to mind, though.

John’s voice broke into Sherlock’s drifting train of thought. “Moriarty said?”

John’s voice was tense again. He hadn’t minded Sherlock having trouble with the buttons, but he sounded as though he minded Moriarty saying.

“He came back,” Sherlock told him, and then quickly tried to explain further, because he didn’t want John to worry. “Only it wasn’t him. Because he’s dead.” The words had come out too fast and he had to stop for a moment to recover. Talking was becoming very difficult. “Can’t remember the rest.”

John squeezed his hand. He leaned down again and brushed his lips softly over Sherlock’s. “Just a bad dream,” he said, his voice low. “That’s all.”

Sherlock nodded sleepily. It had been a bad dream. A very, very bad dream.

“He was in my head too,” he said. He was dimly aware that that might not make much sense, and so he added, “The dead version of him was. That’s when he said.”

“Well, he can bugger off out of your head,” John said. “He’s got no business being in there. You tell him I said that.”

Sherlock thought he might. “Okay.”

“Good,” John said. “And if you dream about him again – well, I know you can’t control your dreams, but just try to remember me, okay? He’s gone, but I’m here. I’m right here, Sherlock.”

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed in satisfaction. John was right here. He liked that so very, very much.

He wanted to say one more thing, though. He’d been trying to say it before but he’d lost the thread of it. For that matter, he was losing all the threads; they were slipping away from him, slipping away and tangling up into a great big cottony mess. It would be so easy to just put his head down on the cottony mess and go to sleep, but he wanted to say this one last thing. He wanted John to hear it.

He tried to gather himself, summoning the last of his flagging strength. The heavy tide of sleep pulled at him, tried to suck him under, but he made himself resist it. Just this one last thing, he wanted to say just this one last thing.

“He was wrong,” he said, forcing the words out through uncooperative lips. “I wouldn’t like it. I want you to bother me. I want to be with you.”

This time John let go of his hand, brought both of his own hands up to cup Sherlock’s face – but gently, so gently, as if John thought he might break.

“You are with me,” John said, the words a soft breath against Sherlock’s lips. “And I’m going to bother you for the rest of our lives. You hear me?”

Sherlock nodded. Yes. Yes. That sounded good. That sounded perfect.

“Good,” John said. And then, more firmly, “Now go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Yes, Sherlock thought again. He was fading fast now, but he clung to John’s words. John would be there when he woke up. John would be there when he woke up.

John would bother him – and he would bother John in return – for the rest of their lives together.

No longer afraid, Sherlock gave up the fight and let the tide pull him under. His last thought before he slept was that when he next woke up, he’d ask John for a proper kiss.

 


End file.
